I'm aiming for 59kg

Thinkpos, i started at 69 so i've only lost about 6kg but have 8 more to go, so I'm not even halfway there yet. Ok my first goal was 59 because it thought that would be slim enough but then i asked my sister how much she weighs and decided i want to be a skinny as her which is 55kg. Some people say she is a bit too skinny but it is still a healthy weight for my height. She's half an inch taller than me.

7.30pm Dinner
Because of the royal wedding, i didn't have much of a dinner tonight. I wanted to watch the show and not be cooking. I had a can of Heinz CReam of Asparagus soup made with half a can of milk and half a can of water.

I am really disapointed though because i missed out on the early part of the commentary when all the guests come in. I like that part of the show. I've given up on it now. Its half way through the service and i feel bored.

I'd quite like to see them head out of the church and back down the road in the carriage. I'm not sure what time that is on though so i will probably end up missing it.

The most gorgeous dress of the night though is one worn by Pippa, the brides sister. I like the wedding dress and Kate looks beautiful of course, but i think her dress is somewhat unsensational compared with Diana's. I like the veil a lot though.
 
Oh, didn't Pippa look lovely? She did such a good job as bridesmaid and she was so lovely with the little page boys and flower girls. It was such a wonderful day. Le sigh.

Hey, you know you eat rye bread? After your advice, i'm thinking of eating it. What does it taste like? I know taste is hard to describe. But, you're good with words so perhaps you will be able to describe it?
 
It's actually Amy who eats rye bread every day but i am familiar with it.

I like rye bread. Its got a slightly sour taste. And denser and nuttier by a long shot than sliced white but it uses fine flour so it won't be grainy. Its good in that it will feel like you've just eaten something when you've eaten it, as opposed to how you feel when you eat sliced white. :dupe: (i don't know what dupe means but i thought the image seemed to fit)
 
April 30 Day 29

I should do a summary today since its the last day of the month. So i'll do that he post after this...

But first, business as usual...

Weight: 63.2kg
Down 200g

7.30 am Breakfast
1/2 cup oats
12 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup full cream mlk
1 apple

10.00am expresso w full cream 1/2 cup milk


12.30: Lunch
2 felafals and a salad sandwich on a white poppy seed roll.
In the sandwich i had lettuce, tomato and i cooked up some eggplant in 1tsp of olive oil with garlic.

5pm: walk

6.30pm: Glass wine

7.30pm: Dinner
Duck soup asian style with cellophane noodles and pak choy.

Ok this has been a big production but as a result, i will be eating duck for a week in some manner or another. And i still haven't eaten all the aloo gobi or the felafals. My fridge is so full its getting pretty scary. I think i better not go shopping for a while.

First step is making duck stock. I decided on this because this duck is an old duck. A grandpa duck. I killed the poor thing myself but its not one of my ducks. And i had help. Because of all that, i have to do it justice and make sure none of it goes to waste. But because its an old duck, its not gonna be nice and juicy and tender like you might get if you go to an asian food place.

I know most people don't have ducks handy but you can do all this with a chicken if it interests you.

I skinned this duck, not because i wanted to avoid the fat but because plucking a duck is very difficult. Skinning a duck is probably even harder. I know that now. Still its a good idea to keep off the skin for soup because its so fatty.

Anyhow....

I put the skinned duck in a large stock pot and covered it with water
I added roughly chopped up carrots, celery and onions.
A little bit of salt.
I also put in potatoes but i am keeping them aside for maybe potato soup.
Some dried herbs. I put in rosemary and a bit of oregano because that's all i had available. I would have preferred thyme and sage and bay leaves. And also all spice but i cant' find any. All spice is a great thing to add to many dishes.

Cook this for ages. I cooked this for at least 2 hours. or was it three. The main thing was to cook it till the meat was not tough anymore and to get as much flavour out of the bones as possible.

[before i did this, i choppped off the breasts as i was going to do something else but i forgot. I wanted to marinate them. I hope they don't go off]

To make the Asian style soup
1/4 cup shredded duck meat
1 cup cellophane noodles
1 bok choy (alternative asian greens can be used)
2 small shallots
1-2 tsp grated ginger
1 large clove garlic
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 fresh coriander
lemon juice
1 jug of stock

Take out the duck and pinch of some of the meat from the carcass. I put the legs aside for later. Tear up the meat so that its in small pieces. (It was a bit dry but not chewy) If cooking a chicken, take the chicken out when its cooked. If you want you can do this with just chicken frames as well but you won't have any meat.

Remove all the vegetables with a slotted spoon. and reserve for later use.
Skim off as much fat as possible from the stock pot.

Put about 3/4 litre jug of stock on to boil and add the fish sauce. Let it boil to reduce a little. Put a kettle on to boil for the cellophane noodles. When the kettle is boiled, pour the water on the noodles and let them soften for about two minutes only. Then drain and keep aside.

Heat the sesame oil in a pan, add the ginger and garlic and let it cook with the heat turned off. Add the duck to the pan while its still hot to coat the duck in the flavours.

Add the pak choy to the stock two minutes before you are ready to eat. Add in the chopped shallots also. When you are ready to serve, put the noodles in a bowl, pour over the stock with the pak choy, add the duck meat. Sprinkle with coriander and squeeze over the lemon. If you have it a bit of chilli oil could be nice now.

Anyway for my dinner, this worked out pretty well.

Exercise: 8km walking with 5km running.

Because i'd had such a big day in the garden and still have so much to do tonight, i decided not to go to my new long route and did the old route instead. But I was keen to run again. I'm running once a week. That's the plan. I wouldn't mind getting up to a 10km run. But i will just take it easy and do what i can. Its good to be doing this now for my cycling trip. Its good to start off with a bit of fitness, though its not necessary if you have plenty of time.
 
April Progress Summary

I joined this site at the beginning of April, one month after having begun my diet.

This month i have lost 2 kilograms (or 4.4pounds). Its not a lot but i feel great and so i am happy with this.

According to the scales my weight has been up and down radically but its not because of my diet slip ups. Its just water and other toilet issues.

I haven't binged once since i started on this site. I did have a binge just before i came to this site. I haven't slipped up once on any of my "forbidden" foods. I've done really well. It is easy for me because i don't have any stresses or anyone tempting me and my time is completely my own. The main tricky periods are when i go to town. I've been to the city and to our local town a few times and each time i've chosen good foods, not over eaten (except on salad) and avoided all my usual danger food haunts. So i'm really happy about that.

I've taken up exercise. I've been doing it every second day except for the odd occasion when i go to the city. Recently i've started running once a week. This is all going well. I can now run 5km.

I've been really enjoying my food. I am eating so many more vegetables that i do habitually. I am back into cooking all my meals and feeling enthusiastic about it and enjoying it totally.

I think i am saving money on food all up.

I am not starving but i now think i might be eating at a maintenance leve because my weight isn't really doing down anymore. Its just hovering around 63kg. I don't want to increase my time exercising just the disance i run.

I am also more active in the garden now that i have started preparing for my trip. A lot of this comes down to it being cooler than it was. But also the fact that i have a lot to do to prepare for my trip. A lot has to get done before i leave. So all that activity amounts to more calories being burnt.

I've switched totally and suddenly from drinking nescafe with milk all day long (about 5 cups minimum) to drinking water all day long and only 1 cup of expresso with 1/2 cup milk.

I've started to use some low fat milk but i don't like it so I will probably go back to full fat. Although a half half mix on my cereal is ok.

I'm looking quite a bit better. Especially the top half of me - in the face, arms and waist area. I don't have to look at my backside but my legs, whiel better still have a way to go. Clothes are nice and loose and I have more choice of clothes to wear from my wardrobe.

So all up, things are going very well.

My goals for next month are not significant. Just continue what i'm doing. I don't mind not to lose more weight, although maybe i should aim to lose 1kg before leaving for Darwin. (May 20) just to get in the habit of eating less. I say this becuase on my trip i expect to lose a lot, hopefully all of what i want to lose and be 55kg by the end of July. hmm that would be 8kg in two months. I am not sure that's a good thing. I'll revise....

Before i leave for Darwin, it would be nice if i could run 8km at least. I'll just add one k each week.
 
You only joined this site in the beginning of April?
I feel like you're incredibly well-established here.
Like one of the Elders from Charmed, who looked down on earth and on the charmed ones etc.

will you be able to get online while you're in Darwin? :((( I hope so.

Great to read that you're saving money on food! And that duck asian soup sounds divine. You're such an inventive cook.
 
fortyfour said:
It's actually Amy who eats rye bread every day but i am familiar with it.

I like rye bread. Its got a slightly sour taste. And denser and nuttier by a long shot than sliced white but it uses fine flour so it won't be grainy. Its good in that it will feel like you've just eaten something when you've eaten it, as opposed to how you feel when you eat sliced white. :dupe: (i don't know what dupe means but i thought the image seemed to fit)
Click to expand...

haha 'dupe'.
Thank you. Mmm sour, dense and nutty. Sounds good to me.
 
This is the stuff I get:

I don't find it sour per se (although by comparison regular bread does taste sweet), but definitely dense and nutty, and very filling. It's quite high in sodium unfortunately, but it saves quite a bit on the calories. It's not as flexible as regular bread- much more likely to crumble- so you may want to keep that in mind if you're going to take it to work. For the price it's definitely worth a try (although I have no idea what supermarket you go to, and I go to a relatively big Tesco- not one with a clothes range in store, but the biggest of the medium sized stores, so it might not be in a smaller one)
 
May 1 Day 30

Its only cause i'm relatively old that i sound like an elder, caffeine.

Now for today...

Oh you will see that today's gastronomic exercise was a flop.

Weight: 62.6kg
Nice one. Down 600g.

8.00 am Breakfast
1/2 cup oats
12 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup full cream mlk
1 apple
9am expresso w full cream 1/2 cup milk


11.45am: Lunch - take away from home
Egg wrap:
Chia wrap, boiled duck egg, lettuce, 2 tsp avocado
1 apple

12.30pm: nescafe w milk

6pm: 1/2 Glass red wine

7.30pm: Dinner
Stir fried marinated duck and vegetable soup made with duck stock

The duck was tough. Not altogether unexpected i might add but i had hoped the marinade might help it. It didn't.

Here is the marinade - its japanese.
Duck breast cut finely across the grain. You could use beef or chicken also
1/4 cup mirin (japanese vinegar but you could also use dry sherry)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic

I didn't weigh the meat but i put in two duck breasts and this was enough for the recipe.

I stir fried in sesame oil.

The vegetable soup was also not much chop. I just blended up all the vegetables that i had used when boiling the duck yesterday, including a bit of potato. I think it would have been better if i had reduced the stock more and then if i were to cook some pumpkin and blend it up, it would be good. So I might do that tomorrow. We have so many pumpkins here that need eating. It might also be good to cook lentils in. Hmm, i feel like some more lentils.

Anyway dinner was really disappointing tonight but i ate it all and so i am not hungry which is good. I ate 1/2 cup of duck meat and about 2 cups of vegetable soup.
 
I don't know if i will get on line in Darwin but i will keep a diary and post it all when i get back. And bore you to death with it. :D I thought i could do maybe five days at a time. There's not much in the way of internet where i'm going. It's the outback. Cowboys and desert and "Wolf Creek" country! I am actually going nearby but not to Wolf Creek. I thought it would be too scary for a lone woman on a bicycle. And i haven't even seen the movie.
 
May 2 Day 31

Weight: 62.2kg
Down 400g

7.30 am Breakfast
1/2 cup oats
12 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup full cream mlk
1/2 apple
1/4 pomegranate

9am expresso w full cream 1/2 cup milk

12.30am: Lunch
Asian style duck soup with noodles as per the recipe i posted a couple of days ago. This time i added 1/2 carrot, instead of bok choy.
1 felafal

4.30pm: 1 Glass wine

7pm: Dinner
Omelette on 1 piece multigrain toast - really quite delicious to my surprise.
2 duck eggs, 1/3 cup milk, 1 tomato, 1/2 cup aloo gobi leftovers, 2 tsp olive oil.

Exercise: A 3km walk on the beach this afternoon. I’ve been walking all around the garden for hours today as i’ve started laying down my irrigation so i think i covered the 8km. I’ve also been digging trenches. It’s been quite a strenuous day.
 
Oooooh you've had a very active day.
Noooo Wolf Creek county? if you had seen the movie, you certainly wouldn't be joking about how you're going to be near it.
That movie is horrific.

Your entries always make me want to eat duck. om nom. and have espresso with full cream. And your omelette recipe sounded delicious. Do duck eggs taste different to chicken eggs?
 
Not at all. They are said to be richer because the egg yolk is proportionally bigger but my father tells me, all eggs taste the same.
 
fortyfour said:
Yes Amy, i have been through the whole low fat dairy and come full circle. I am now against it. The one thing that i don't like about the full cream, is not so much the fat but the fact that its saturated fat which is just a little better than trans-fats. For quite a few years i tried low fat milk and i found it ok on my cereals but not for my coffee. And now i just want all my food to taste the best it can. I think that for my diet, its better to get the calories in my milk. I would only try to find them somewhere else and it may end up being a worse source of calories i end up eating.

Or it may be a good source like say nuts, but they are a weakness and I know that i wouldn't be able to keep control of it for long. I don't have this problem with milk. I don't need to binge with milk but i can binge with every other yummy thing.

There will come a day when i will probably binge on my prunes. lol. Won't it be fun to be around me then! I am only eating those because my doctor told me to for my constipation which results from my antidepressant medication.

I think they did a study with footballers and milk - though i am not sure i think they are the best study group - and it was noted that those who were given the low fat milk made up the calories elsewhere.

Sorry i am raving a bit but i could on and on with my rational for this choice. Its not very long ago that i decided to just quit using low fat at all.

If i wasn't losing weight, i'd have to give it some thought i guess but at the moment things are going fine.
Click to expand...

I love the ones (prunes), but I heard on Dr Oz to use Metamucil 3 times a day, but I found that once a day helps the constipation. I get the Orange flavor and put it in water. Works good! For quick relief, drink a cool 20oz bottle of water before eating, or drinking coffee when you first get up in the morning. If you have to take thyroid med. it helps to switch the time you take them to just before you go to bed instead of first thing in the morning. (Little things that helped me with constipation).

Sounds like you are doing good.
 
May 3 Day 32 (on this site) + one month more

Weight: 62.2kg
Same

7.30 am Breakfast
1/2 cup oats
12 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup full cream mlk
1/2 apple
1/4 pomegranate

11am cappucino

12.30am: Lunch in town
Fish soup with bread at a Greek Restaurant
including vegetables - carrots, celery, potato

6.30pm: Dinner
100g linguini w 2tbsp home made pesto
1/2 cup pumpkin soup
1/2 cup yoghurt w 1/4 pomegranate
1 Glass wine

Exercise: none

I was supposed to have some teeth out today. It didn't happen. Gawd its complicated. I suppose the upside is that today i am not in pain.
 
Thanks for your thoughts Anna. I could give switching the med times a try. I haven't heard this before. The reason why my doc likes me taking the meds first thing in the morning is because they work best (for the hypothyroidism) on an empty stomach. But i have to admit that i often don't do it quite so early and often its not until after i've eaten.

Why does Dr Oz recommend metamucil 3 x a day?

The reason i take plain psyllium fibre instead of metamucil is because of the cost. And the name of the product sounds a lot like mucus which is a turn off for me. lol.

None of the other things you mention work for me much. This constip results from my antidepressants so if i am not ready to poo nothing (like coffee or water) will make it happen except perhaps a laxative. My doctor told me not to use that more than one a month. I wouldn't like to be addicted to those.
 
Did you look into the calorie counting program? Did it help? I'm not trying to convert you (honest!), just wanting to know how you got on.
 
Hi Amy, yes i've downloaded it. I haven't had time to use it though. I have been so busy at the moment with all my irrigation installation, and tooth extractions and various other chores preparing for my cycling trip. Not to mention that really long post i wrote to the young boy the other day. I need a lot of time to work through the program. I will get around to it and then i'll let you know. It does appear to be different from the one on nutrition data and others i've seen so maybe its a bit easier to use.

Its good to see that the scales have been going down again. I've cut down a little bit on my intake but i haven't got a rule for it as yet so its a bit vague and maybe readers won't pick up on it.
 
May 4 Day 33 (on this site) + one month more wednesday

Weight: 62.kg
Down 200g

8.00 am Breakfast
1/2 cup oats
12 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup full cream mlk
1/2 apple
1/4 pomegranate

8.30am Coffee w full cream milk

12.00am: Lunch
Sorba wrap, 3 felafals, rocket leaves, tomato

1.30pm green apple

6.30pm: Dinner at a friend’s house
Stir fried chicken and vegetables with basmati rice.
Vegetables - cabbage, carrots and snow peas.
Soda water

Exercise: Not today.

I had two of my wisdom teeth out today. It went well. Only two more to go. They’ll be done in a fortnight’s time.
 
Glad you were not in pain after having your teeth out.
Sorry you've been so busy :/// Hope you get to start using the calorie counter. It can take over your life though.
 
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